Lawmakers will introduce bill to kill tariffs on coffee
Bacon and Khanna said they focused on coffee because they want to help Americans save on a daily staple. But they also hope the legislation — which has a slim shot of passing Congress, let alone being signed into law by Trump — will encourage tariff conversations that are grounded in shared experiences. They say that sort of dialogue will help build opposition to the administration’s tariffs.
“If [Americans are] like, ‘Okay, this coffee tax, we don’t like this’ — well, what about the fact that now we have a tariff that is causing your hamburger’s price to go up, that’s causing the price of bananas to go up, apples are up?” Khanna said in an interview. “We can talk about it more broadly, in terms of the prices going up because of tariffs.”
“Why are we tariffing American citizens on something that we don’t even grow? It doesn’t make sense,” Bacon said.
The first round of Trump’s sweeping tariffs — taxes that American businesses pay to import foreign goods — took effect April 5. The tariffs apply to products from almost every country. Among the United States’ top trading partners, the rates range from 10 to 50 percent.
Few places in the U.S. have the right soil and climate to grow coffee, making Americans reliant on imported beans from countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua and Vietnam. Those countries now face tariff rates of 50 percent, 10 percent, 18 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
Economic data suggests these tariffs have influenced the price of coffee: Costs have increased nearly 21 percent since this time last year, according to the consumer price index.
Coffee is one of the consumer goods most affected by Trump’s tariffs, said Alberto Cavallo, a professor at Harvard Business School and co-director of its Pricing Lab, which has modeled the impact of U.S. tariffs.
“Coffee is one of those types of goods where we’ve seen the biggest [price] increases,” Cavello said. “The timing coincides with the tariffs.”
It’s a change felt across millions of households: Two-thirds of American adults drink coffee every day, according to the National Coffee Association.
Khanna and Bacon face an uphill battle. Even if they can muster enough support to muscle their bill through the Republican-controlled House, they would also need enough Republicans to sign on to maneuver it past the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. That support could be difficult to obtain, given that congressional Republicans in both chambers have proved largely unwilling to oppose the president’s agenda.
A handful of Republican senators have been critical of Trump’s tariffs, including Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Those senators did not reply to a request for comment on whether they would support this effort to exempt coffee. (Grassley and Bacon introduced companion bills to return tariff authority to Congress in the spring.)
Even if the bill were to succeed in the House and Senate, the legislation would need the president’s signature: a step that would require Trump to reverse a key part of his own agenda.
“I’m not here to anger the president, but I don’t think tariffs work,” Bacon said. “I’m sure the administration may get a little angry about it, but I think, in the end, if he takes our advice, he’ll have a better policy.”
Creating a carve-out for coffee is a long shot, and Bacon and Khanna know that. But in a historically unproductive Congress, the lawmakers argue that actually getting a bill passed is only part of the reason to introduce one. They say campaigning for legislation through town halls and social media, something they plan to do with their coffee bill, can be an effective way to create pressure for change to take place in other ways.
The best-case scenario here, the lawmakers said, is for the Trump administration to take the initiative to exempt coffee from its tariffs. They hope that drumming up public pressure will get top administration officials like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the phone and that, from there, the administration can be persuaded to exclude coffee from the tariffs. Some exemptions already exist for products, including critical minerals, pharmaceuticals and even cork.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
“The real goal is to get Trump to shift,” Khanna said. “Yes, we want to get it passed and signed into law. That’s always the ideal for anyone who is in Congress. … But I’m less concerned about do I get a pen and my name on a bill, and more does the policy change.”